


Know Your Friends

by SimmeringSun



Series: The Lost Boys [3]
Category: Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: Arcades, Dr. Light's A+ Parenting, Friendship, Gen, Name-Calling, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 08:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16091834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimmeringSun/pseuds/SimmeringSun
Summary: Bass is sick of Proto Man getting all antsy when he so much as mentions Dr. Light. So he takes the other to an arcade so he can beat his butt at games instead.Rated T for Bass' swearing





	Know Your Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Idk just some mindless friendship stuff. Honestly Bass is a pretty awful friend with all of his name calling and stuff.

“You're late.” Proto Man said with a smug smile. He immediately reaches out for the two beverages the other is holding, but Bass keeps them out of his reach. Proto tries to extend his arm to reach them, but just sits back when he realizes that Bass is just using his height to his advantage. Bass grins.

“Shut up! Here I was going to actually give you one of these.”, Bass says as he shakes the cans in his hands. He sits down on the bench seat across from the other. He opens both of the cans and smirks. “Guess I'll drink both of them myself.”

“Why would you do this to a poor homeless child?”, Proto Man asks in mock hurt as he clutches his chest. Bass snorts and takes a swig from the can much to the other’s annoyance.

“We're the same age fuck-nut, and I don't give a shit.”, Bass says with a shrug.

“Whatever.”, Proto Man says nonchalantly as he leans back and crosses his arms behind his head, but Bass can tell that he’s still looking over at the cans in his hands. “I shouldn't trust anything from your slimy hands anyways.”

“Damn right you shouldn't.”, Bass says in earnest. He slides one of the cans over to the other, and Proto Man catches the beverage before it slides off the table.

“Monster?”, He said with a snort as he looks at the label of the can. “Red Bull is better.”

“Ok, then I'm never buying shit for you again, you prick. I bet you can't even afford Redbull”, Bass says. “We're not here for stupid drinks anyways. We're here to talk business.”

“So is this like the ‘Our Dads Suck Club’?”, Proto asks as he drinks some of the can’s contents.

“No, it's the ‘Fuck Everything, Let's Kill Our Dads Club.”, Bass corrects.

“I don't want to kill the doc dude. He's still my siblings’ dad even if he sucks at doing it.”, Proto says with a shrug. He never really liked talking about Dr. Light.

“Why do you even hate Dr. Light?”, Bass asks. “Isn't he supposed to be the all-hailing good guy.”

“Besides the fact that he tried to kill me? He just sucks dude. We’d be here all day if I listed all the reasons, and god knows I don't want to be here all day with you.”, Proto says with a shrug. He was obviously trying to get off the topic, and Bass clearly didn't give a shit. “Why do you even hate Dr. Wily?”

“The dude blows. Hard. He always gets in the way of me beating Mega Man.”, Bass says as he rolls his eyes. “I fucking asked him for McDonalds yesterday and he gave me Burger King. God, I hate him so much.”

“I think I hate you.”, Proto says as he frowns at Bass’ mundane whining. He says it with sincerity, but there's a smile on his face. Bass just wants to punch it off.

The predicament between the two of them was a strange one. Ever since that one fateful night where Bass encountered the other while running away from home, the two have planned out occasional meetings. It wasn't easy since the homeless child was always moving. Bass tried asking if Proto had some sort of schedule or rhyme with his movements, and Proto just shrugged.

Eventually they had finally planned this meet-up at the local park. They sat at their usual table: the one that had most of the paint chipped off. The metal was rusting and corroded, and it immediately reminded Bass of Proto.

“I say we just fucking bomb both of their places.”, Bass says. Proto crosses his arms and Bass lets out an annoyed sigh. “You can even get your stupid siblings out before we do.”

“I can't really move X, he's in a capsule.”, Proto says.

“Pft, that's not stopping me with Zero. I hope he fucking dies”, Bass says. Proto just shakes his head and Bass lets out a groan.

“Fine. Since you got a stick up your ass let's just go to the arcade. I got a fifty from Wily.”, Bass says as he holds up a wad of bills. 

“Got or stole?”, Proto asks.

“Stole obviously.”, Bass says with a grin. “I need to beat your ass at some games.”

“Alright I'm up for it.”, Proto says with a shrug. He liked the games so far that Bass has showed him on his consoles. “But uh, what's an arcade?”

Bass’ mouth falls open. He couldn't believe it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”, Bass asks. He knew the other robot was an idiot, but he didn’t know it was this bad.

“No.”, Proto says. He doesn’t look embarrassed in the slightest. “What's an arcade?”

“God. You just..”, Bass says and takes a moment to rub his temples. “This is so fucking sad. I thought you were pathetic before, but now I almost feel bad for you.”

“Oh, well I just think you're pathetic if we’re having an honest hour here.”, Proto says.

“Shut up! Get up, I'm about to take you to the only good thing the human race has made. Besides me of course.”, Bass says. He gets up from the table and doesn’t even look back to see if the other was following.

“What about McDonald's? I thought you liked that too.”, Proto says as he follows along.

“Wait humans made McDonald’s?”, Bass asks in disbelief. “I thought that stupid clown was a robot.”

Proto snorts, and the two walk along the sidewalk, getting stares from passing pedestrians. Bass manages to get a couple laughs out of the other with his mean jokes, and by the time the two make it to the arcade, they are both howling with laughter. Bass smiles at the sight of the building. It was like his home away from home.

“Welcome to my kingdom dork.”, Bass says in a mock welcome as they walk through the doors. Bass watches the other and waits for Proto’s awe of amazement, but Proto just looks confused. The place was empty since human children had to go to school at this time and most human adults had to work.

“What is this place?”, Proto asks as he looks around.

“You play games here.”, Bass says like he’s explaining something to a five year old. Seriously, who doesn’t know about arcades?

Proto still looks confused, but Bass just rolls his eyes. The other will just figure it out when they start playing games anyways.

“Help me catch these quarters. This amount of cash is bound to get me a lot of plays.”, Bass says as he walks over to the quarter machine. He slips the bills into the machine, noticing Proto’s weird look at the money. He just shrugs it off as Proto never really seeing money before. He presses the button on the machine, and watches as the quarters start to gush out.

He cups his hands underneath the flow of quarters, and frowns when the coins pile up and start to slip out of his hands.

“There’s no way you can hold all of that dude.”, Proto says with amusement. Bass scowls.

“Then shut up and help me.”, Bass barks. Proto chuckles, and after a couple of seconds he pushes Bass’ hands lightly out of the way and places a familiar object underneath the stream. It was Proto’s helmet. 

Bass blinks at the helmet and turns around to see the other. 

Proto was pushing a pair of spiky sunglasses onto his face as Bass’ eyes landed on him. His light brown hair was wild and stuck up in a weird manner. Proto shifted uncomfortably, and Bass felt a smile spread across his face before he barks out a long laugh. 

“You look fucking ridiculous!”, Bass says through his laughs. “No wonder why you keep the helmet on all the time!”

“Oh, so is that why you wear yours all the time?”, Proto asks as he crosses his arms. There’s a slight blush on his face and it makes Bass laugh even harder.

“No! I’m just not an idiot who reveals their identity in public!”, Bass says as his laughter starts to die down. “Seriously though, what the fuck is up with your hair?”

“It’s a look dude.”, Proto says as he subconsciously pats down his hair. “I just have helmet head right now.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”, Bass says with a snort. The sweet melody of clinking quarters slowly dies down and Bass dumps the pile of quarters in his hands with the rest. He picks up the helmet and walks to the sea of games.

“Since you’re an uncultured swine, it’s up to me to show you all the good games here.”, Bass says as he looks back at the other. “Honestly, I’m doing a great service here.”

“I thought you hooked games to a TV.”, Proto says in confusion as he looks at the moving screens. He stops and looks at a fighting game.

“These are like a TV and game system in one.”, Bass says. He looks back to see the other had stopped and lets out a huff. “Come on, I need to best all of my old scores.”

“Can I play this one?”, Proto asks as he points to a racing game. It was the Speed Racer arcade game. It was honestly Bass’ least favorite game in the place.

“Of course you’d pick that one. It fucking sucks. You just jump around in a car. What kind of car even jumps?”, Bass says as he taps his foot impatiently. “Come on, I’ll show you better games.”

Bass grabs onto Proto’s shoulder and steers him over to his favorite game. It was a fighting game, and Bass’ name lined the whole list of high scores that flickered across the title screen.

“This game is the best. You beat shit up with pretty cool characters. The characters are not as good as me, but hey maybe one day they’ll capture my greatness in a video game.”, Bass rambles proudly as he leans against the arcade machine. He sees Proto’s mouth make an ‘o’ shape when he sees the high score screen and Bass grins. 

“Just stand back and watch a master at work.”, Bass says as he wiggles his fingers a bit before he had his hands hovered in the familiar position over the buttons. Proto just sipped on the last bits of his energy drink as he watched the other robot start up the game. 

The game started and Bass put his all into it. He pretended the character he was playing was himself and the other was Mega Man. It always helped him concentrate on the game. Bass was beating the computer’s butt. He grinned as he saw his score climb on the corner of the screen. He risked a peek at the robot behind him and frowned when he saw that Proto looked not only bored, but a little miffed. Bass couldn’t figure out what the hell was his problem? Didn’t he recognize a genius at work?

“Ha! Look at that!”, Bass says triumphantly as he points to his score. “It’s not my best, but it’s pretty good!”

“Huh.”, Proto says as he slurps on his can loudly. There was hardly any drink left in there. He was just bored and distracting himself. It made Bass want to rip the can from his hand and stomp on it.

Bass opened his mouth to yell at the other for his apparent lack of interest in the holy establishment, but Bass didn’t want to admit that he cared. No, he didn’t give a damn about what the inferior robot thought of the rows of games and the high scores that Bass has achieved. He just needed to show Proto some more cool games.

“Since I’m feeling extra generous today, we can play two players on this next one.”, Bass says as he points to another fighting game. Proto seems even more interested as he looks at the game Bass was pointing at. “You remind me of this short stubby character on here.”

“And you remind me of that big ugly monster right there.”, Proto says with a snort as he points to a moving figure on the screen. Bass swats the side of Poro’s head which just makes Proto laugh more. Bass rolls his eyes and mutters something about Proto being an idiot as he puts two quarters in.

Bass directs Proto to his side of the game, and Bass stands behind his set of buttons. Bass jumps slightly on the balls of his feet in anticipation. He loved the movement and action of this game. If Proto didn't like this game he surely was crazy.

Proto awkwardly places his hands above the buttons. Bass cringes at the awful hand placement but just focuses on picking his character. He'll clobber Proto.

When the gamr starts Bass practically pummels Proto's character. Of course Proto fights back, but it looked like the other really didn't want to be playing the game. Ok so maybe not this one either.

Bass spends the next hour taking the other robot around the arcade. He stops at all his favorite games, but Proto doesn't seem interested in any of them. Bass didn't understand. He's taken Proto to all the greats. There was so much action and fighting crammed into each one. He even had them stop at a couple shooting games in between. 

“Alright!”, Bass yells as he turns to the other. “What is your problem?”

“What are you talking about?”, Proto asks with a slight tilt of his head.

“You're just sitting there like I've taken you to a fucking library! I know you like games, you were ok at Mario Kart. Not as good as me, but at least it looked like you liked playing it!”, Bass says as he points to Proto.

“Hey libraries are pretty cool.”, Proto says with a shrug. “And I don't know...None of these are really that fun.”

“Ughhh, you're hopeless.”, Bass says with a huff as he crosses his arms. “I don't even know why I took you here. I should've known that you were just a dumbass who wouldn't appreciate fine art.”

The corners of Proto's mouth tug downwards at the comment. Proto takes his helmet still filled with quarters. Bass blinks as the other robot takes a quarter from the helmet and walks up to the Speed Racer game he was standing by when they stepped inside. He inserts the quarter andm starts playing it.

“You got to be kidding me.”, Bass says as he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Please don't tell me you're enjoying this.”

“This is actually pretty cool.”, Proto says in earnest. His eyes are glued to the screen with a small smile. “I wish I had a car like this.”

“I'm speechless. I feel like I should kick you out of this fine establishment, but I'm just speechless.”, Bass says as he throws his hands up.

“I just...I'm just sick of fighting. Even fighting games are not fun.”, Proto admits with a shrug. Bass blinks. 

It made sense. All of Bass’ favorite games were fighting games. The only games Proto took interest in when they were in his room were racing and party games. He took no interest in any of the fighting games.

“God. You should've just told me idiot. I could have saved a lot of quarters by just playing one-player if you weren't even interested.”, Bass says as he rolls his eyes and watches Proto play. He felt oddly relieved that the robot found a game he liked. It made Bass want to destroy the dumb game even more.

“Well looks like I found a game I can make my own high score in.”, Proto says smugly. “Your name isn't even on this leaderboard.”

“Well why would I waste money and time on that stupid game?”, Bass yells. Proto laughs.

The two spend the whole day at the arcade. Bass plays his fighting games and manages to beat a few of his old high scores while Proto played his racing games and Pac Man.

“God, you're awful. I should never take you here again.”, Bass says as the two walk out of the arcade late at night.

“Ok.”, Proto says with a shrug.

The two stand there for a second before Bass looks away from the other.

“Want to go here again next week?”

“Yeah. Sure.”


End file.
